


Defy the World

by ernyx



Series: BuckyNat fics (for ease of finding) [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Battle Couple, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Bucky and Nat deserve each other, BuckyCap - Freeform, Dancing, F/M, Feels, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-10 20:17:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13509018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ernyx/pseuds/ernyx
Summary: There are perks and there are demerits. Being Captain America is no easy job, and Bucky has been getting a lot of crap for taking on the title. Even strangers know he’s not the same Captain America that stood before them a year ago, he doesn’t hold himself the same, doesn’t compensate for chronic illnesses out of habit (even though they disappeared so long ago), doesn’t smile so openly at others. They know he’s not the same person, and he knows that it just means that he’s not what they expected him to be.He’s never what anyone expects him to be, not even himself.





	Defy the World

**Author's Note:**

> crossposted from tumblr http://artificiallyimplantedmemories.tumblr.com/post/127688005546/ inspired by the wonderful kelsk's art! // feel free to send prompts for me here or there

     There are perks and there are demerits. Being Captain America is no easy job, and Bucky has been getting a lot of crap for taking on the title. Even strangers know he’s not the  _same_  Captain America that stood before them a year ago, he doesn’t hold himself the same, doesn’t compensate for chronic illnesses out of habit (even though they disappeared so long ago), doesn’t smile so openly at others. They know he’s not the same person, and he knows that it just means that he’s not what they expected him to be.

     He’s never what anyone expects him to be, not even himself.

* * *

     When James Buchanan Barnes is a baby, he expects to be an only child, grow up in a place and time where there is no war tearing their world apart. He becomes an older brother to Rebecca first, and when she’s sent away to boarding school after his father’s death, he still can’t  _quite_  make up for it by nearly adopting Steve. He protects the skinny, ill, fierce boy with everything he has, of course, knows he always will (as he pulled the teen out of alleys with bloody noses and ripped knuckles and fury on his face at something someone said) and clings to that like it’s life itself. 

     But there comes a time that even Steve isn’t enough to fight for (he’s  _always_ enough to fight for, but the world is wider than one person now) because there are Nazis on the move (and Steve wants to fight and whenever Steve  _can’t_ fight, Bucky fights for him), the older boy enlists in the U.S. Army.

     Bucky joins the army with hopes that he’ll come back home after a short war that leaves him braver than the legs that shake when nobody is looking. He hopes he’ll come back with a medal, come back to Steve, come back and find Becca, come back and find something to call home at long last (with something that resembles the smiles on the faded photograph he still has of his parents, with his hand in his father’s and his sister in their mother’s lap).

      ~~We all know that’s not how the story goes.~~

* * *

     Bucky becomes the  _Asset_ , the Winter Soldier, he becomes  _James_  after so long of his given name being affectionately replaced. He becomes not the army sniper, but the assassin, he becomes not the one with the medal to bring home but the greatest single-handed threat on the Soviet side. Instead of appreciation and stability, he gets a metal arm and harsh winters alive and even harsher freezes in cryostasis.

     It’s in one of the gaps between freezes that he meets Natalia Romanova (at the time, though she’ll go through a few dozen names between the time she works with him and the time that he takes up the mantle of the famous Captain), and they become a fearsome duo. Somewhere in the loneliness, even against orders, the pull of his heart (what’s left of it) wins out, and he finds himself longing for the fiery redhead (slim and graceful and nothing like Steve except when she turns from impenetrable ice to shards of fire) who has been assigned as his apprentice in arms.

     (Their kisses are like electricity–  
            as impossible to pull away from as a live wire   
                      but just as life-threatening.)

     The songs have debated it for decades, and perhaps both sides are right (from “love is forever” to “nothing good ever lasts”) because despite the claws they’ve extended into each other, their bonds of blood and love and grief, they are still pulled away.

     When they meet again years later, they are different people. Natasha has defected to the side Bucky was on, James is on the side Natalia was on, and despite everything between them, they don’t hold back against each other. “I know you are dangerous,” their gazes say. “And I know the world cares nothing of what I think. I must do what I must do.”

* * *

      Nat stares out over the city skyline from the Avengers Tower and ponders how she got here. After so long, James is finally back on her side (on  _their_ side, it’s not about her, it never was and never will be), but he’s– he’s neither  _James_ , nor  _Bucky_. She’s not sure who he is.

     She’s not sure who she is either, she admits to herself. She’s only who she needs to be.

     Tony demands to tinker with the metal arm frequently, Clint avoids Barnes because of ideological differences about taking up Cap’s mantle, Steve and Bucky’s childhood stories are shared over dinner courtesy of Sam. It’s a strange world that Natasha doesn’t feel like she has a part in, and simply sits there, watching life swim past her.

     (It’s not enough, it’s never enough, but she’s long sealed the hole she once had in her chest. There’s cement there now, filling the void. It’s heavy, hard to lug around, but it doesn’t bleed anymore. She can center into it and feel like she’s on solid ground even as she’s running.)

     It stays that way, even as she relearns him, as he relearns her. Cement is strong. She designed it not to crack, not to break, (not to be replaced) and even the previous image of her heart isn’t enough to budge it. But she stays by his side because it’s somewhere to belong (she’s never had a place to belong) and he sticks by her because it’s familiar (it’s not all the same but enough is for it to count) and it’s the closest thing to stability they both know.

* * *

      Being Captain America doesn’t stop undercover missions, but this time James gets to assign it to himself instead of having someone ordering him around. He’s tired of the spotlight, tired of the stares, the whispers behind his back, the people pointing fingers at him and calling him a hero and a villain all in one breath. So he runs away, vanishes to the Czech Republic on a low-level recon mission with no active fighting involved. He puts on a prosthetic sleeve that makes his arm look almost fleshy, and watches a gala unfold, full of glittering socialites and criminals alike. 

                                                     He hates it.  
                                        It’s everything he never got.  
                            It’s everything he’s been trained never to do.

     Barnes slips from shadow to shadow without attracting the guests’ attention (despite having been invited under his pseudonym and having no real reason to hide). Only one pair of eyes follow his every move, only once he looks sufficiently distracted does Nat pounce on him from behind. She’d have been killed for her troubles, but she knows his reflexes as well as her own, and one  _dodge-dodge-block_ later, they’re face to face in a small alcove, a small smile shared between them.

     "Tasha, what are you doing here?”  
     “What are  _you_  doing here? This mission’s way below your level.”

     He doesn’t reply. She knows what he means anyway. The beat of the music drops away into the lull of a slower song, and she reaches out to sweep a thumb across his face. He’s so sad, so tired, so full of emotions he didn’t have to lug around when they first knew each other.

                                             She hurts for him.

     The music tugs up again, a waltz that she remembers from her childhood, and Natasha’s hand reaches for Bucky’s. His gets tugged to her waist before she raises her own to hook over his shoulder to the back of his neck.

     “Natasha–”  
     “Dance with me.”  
     “Seriously?”  
     “For old time’s sake?”

     He sways gently to the music as she hums, up to tiptoe in her heels as she rises and sinks with the beat. _It’s the eye of the storm,_ she thinks,  _just like it was then. We’ll get swept away and it’ll all be gone in a second_. (All good things come to an end.)

     The band moves onto a new song, and Bucky– no, James– no,  _Bucky_ – stares at her inscrutably. Her smile twitches and falls away.

     “We aren’t them anymore,” she whispers. This isn’t the right place, maybe it’s not the right time, but she might as well say it when she has the nerve, Natasha thinks. “Even if we wanted to be, we couldn’t–”

     Bucky shakes his head and smiles. “We don’t have to be. Maybe we can be something different. Maybe something new, if you want to.”

     “I want to,” she replies instantly, then after a couple breaths. “Yeah, I want to.” Her free hand settles over Bucky’s heart. It beats steady, if a touch fast (their hearts always beat fast around each other, this is nothing new), and she smiles too.

* * *

      A new song starts up and they barely notice as they move in for a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments? Feedback? I'd love to hear it! Drop me a line either here or on my tumblr (artificiallyimplantedmemories) !


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